Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/169

 class. Another thing in his favor is, that our institutions do not—as those of Athens did—prohibit people from entering on office while in debt; but every man, with his debt-knapsack on his shoulders, mounts up, step after step, without obstruction. The Pope, in large benefices, appropriates the income of the first year, under the title of Annates, or First-Fruits; and accordingly he, in all cases, bestows any large benefice on the possessor of a smaller one, thereby to augment both his own revenues and those of others; but it shows, in my opinion, a bright distinction between Popery and Lutheranism, that the Consistoriums of the latter abstract from their school-ministers and church-ministers not perhaps above two thirds of their first yearly income; though they too, like the Pope, must naturally have an eye to vacancies.

It may be that I shall here come in collision with the Elector of Mentz, when I confess, that, in Schmausen's ''Corp. jur. pub. Germ''., I have turned up the Mentz-Imperial-Court-Chancery-tax-ordinance of the 6th January, 1659, and there investigated how much this same Imperial-Court-Chancery demands, as contrasted with a Consistorium. For example, any man that wishes to be baked or sodden into a Poet Laureate, has 50 florins tax-dues, and 20 florins Chancery-dues, to pay down; whereas, for 20 florins more, he might have been made a Conrector, who is a poet of this species, as it were by the by and ex officio. The institution of a Gymnasium is permitted for 1,000 florins; an extraordinary sum, with which the whole body of the teachers in the instituted Gymnasium might with us clear off the entry-moneys of their school-rooms. Again, a Freiherr, who, at any rate, often enough grows old without knowing how, must purchase the venia ætatis with 200 hard florins; while, with the